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310
ETHEL CHURCHILL.

and ran into the house: "Where is my uncle?" cried she; but the question was received in dead silence by the assembled servants: the silence was sufficient answer. "He is dead!" said Henrietta, aloud: "I knew it!" and she stood as if rooted to the ground in the middle of the hall.

None who saw her ever forgot her to their dying day; her mantle had dropped on the ground, and her long hair, yet partly gathered up with jewels, fell in black masses over her shoulders. From the feverish pain in her temples, she had pushed it back from her forehead, and the whole face was exposed. It was like that of a corpse, with a strange unnatural spot of red burning on either cheek, and the large eyes fixed and glaring, but with no expression. No one had courage to speak to her, and there she stood for some minutes: a slight movement among the servants recalled her to herself; she started, and hurried at once to her uncle's room. A dim light shewed the dark velvet bed, with its hearse-like plumes, and one or two spectral figures, that seemed to flit round